Data & Stuff

After an evening discussing, Data, Mashups and APIs last night (Cheers Birmingham Social Media Cafe/Guardian) I’ve got a concept mashup I need to get out of my head:

Aim:
To be a resource for kiters (UK, then wider) who want information on Kite Spots.  Primarily we care about past, and future as well as current wind.  For beach sites, we like to know the tidal information.

We also want to know about any place that require you to be a club member/have a restriction.  Also be a place to know ‘what is going on’ in the scene.

Need:
Tidal data (see http://kiteatb.co.uk/tides – for previous experiment, using UKHO data)
Wind (Airports etc/ MET?)
MAP – OpenStreetMap?
Raw Locations – Public Input
Restricted/Club Locations
Funky calendar & tie in – ala http://allbrum.co.uk

We need to be able to provide a simple interface, and allow people to quickly see the restricted locations etc.

(To be edited on Monday) – Please comment with thoughts.

Following on from the Help Me Investigate challenge, where we found out the most ticketed street in Birmingham (check out Be Vocal for the original article I wrote), we are scaling things up and looking at what other councils do.

Thought first, an explanation.  Under the Traffic Management Act 2004 a local authority (i.e council) could request/apply to take up the right for civil enforcement of parking contraventions [historically the police had the power, and contraventions were a criminal act]

Councils have been issued guidelines for levels of charges – including meaning of the ‘contraventions’, this also covers off fees for vehicle removal, storage, release of immobilization devices etc.  As well as the reasons for being able to issue tickets.

What have been historically referred to as ‘Parking Wardens’ are now ‘Civil Enforcement Officers’ (CEOs).  They can issue tickets, or penalty charge notices (PCNs) for any contravention of the rules (the guidelines above discuss the specific reasons for why a notice may be issued)

I have a list of local authorities that have taken up their right for enforcement, and currently we are in the process of sending out the freedom of information requests (FOIs).  If you want to get involved, email me on neil@rasga.co.uk, or checkout the Help Me Investigate site.

From the 50 or so FOIs sent already, (at first we targeted all councils, but have recently received information to let us target those who take up the right), I can categorise the responses as such:

1. We have the data:

• We won’t provide it to you, it will cost too much: Basildon District Council
• Though the report is only on an aggregated basis, you still need multiple reports: Barrow in Furness
• It’s too big to email, therefore we must print (have offered a CD to them), though the data holds CEO numbers -> which are considered personal information: Bath & North Somerset
• You must be working for an organisation, who do you work for: Bassetlaw

2. We don’t have the data:

• In Northern Ireland, local authorities don’t enforce – it’s the responsibility of Roads Service (under Traffic Management (Northern Ireland) Order 2005)
• The police still do the enforcement.

3. We have passed it on to our technical team (likely to produce something – hopefully)

That is the story thusfar, I’ll be keeping tabs on the councils, keep track of my FOIs at What Do They Know.

[If you do reproduce anything coming out from my FOI requests, please attribute the request back to me - Neil Houston, a Help Me Investigate user]